Charging Orders

If a debt is subject to a Court Court Judgment (CCJ), your creditor has further ways to encourage or enforce payment; one option is a Charging Order.

Important
If a creditor tells you that they are going to take you to Court for a charging order, as with any kind of debt problem, it’s important to act fast. Delays can cause complications.

A charging order works by securing an unsecured debt against a property or other assets. This is called placing a charge on the property or asset.

If you are concerned about the consequence of a charging order contact Swift.

A creditor must have a CCJ in it’s favour to be able to apply for a charging order and may do so even of you have kept to the terms of the CCJ.

A charging order doesn’t normally get a creditor their money immediately. It does not force the sale of the property/asset but means that if it is sold, the charge has to be paid to the creditor before any of the proceeds of the sale are passed on to you.

If you don’t keep up with payments as per the terms of the CCJ, the creditor may ask the Court to issue an order of sale which would force the sale.

If there is no instalment order in place, the creditor can apply to the court to enforce the charging order by way of sale.

Interim and Final Charging Orders

The Court will initially issue an interim charging order, which informs you of the creditor’s intent and sets a date for a hearing which must be at least 21 days later. At the hearing a decision is made to issue a final charging order or discharge the interim charging order.

Once a charging order has been made, it can only be removed by paying the debt or sale of the property or asset.